


With Love, A Symphony

by OneofWebs



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alcohol, Canon Compliant, Getting Together, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Musical Instruments, Musicians, Mutual Pining, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, Slow Burn, Song writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 14:37:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20211400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneofWebs/pseuds/OneofWebs
Summary: Crowley has been writing songs since humans invented music. He wrote the first love song. And he wrote it for Aziraphale.Unfortunately, it takes Aziraphale six-thousand years to notice.





	With Love, A Symphony

**Author's Note:**

  * For [leaveanote](https://archiveofourown.org/users/leaveanote/gifts).

> I've been doing this instead of working on things that I need to work on, but hey. We die like men. All things aside, we're sorta set up in the new place, so here I am. hopefully, i'll have time to write in between job hunting and starbucks drinking. Who knows, tho.
> 
> I hope you guys enjoy this one! It got a little out of hand with the length, but honestly, i think that's just my brand now. 𓆏
> 
> Best listened to with [this song.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8qWbowzwZU) This song inspired all of this, and some of the ending fake lyrics. From Hell With Love by Beast in Black.

Crowley had always been a musician, just something about the way the music worked fascinated him. The moment humans had invented it, Crowley had wanted to be a part of it. Banging on the walls of caves had been fun, but humans had perfected it over the years to fine-tuned instruments. As much as Crowley loved to play, Aziraphale loved to listen to him, especially now. With modern invention, as it were. Currently, they were sitting inside of an Irish tavern while Crowley played on the fiddle for the crowd. They clapped along to the beat, a rowdy sort of melody that was good for foot stomping. Even with just a fiddle, the things Crowley could do were marvelous, that of a master.

Aziraphale was seated at the back of the tavern, drinking on a pint, and watching the crowd cheer for him. Crowley had fit in rather well in Ireland. He looked the part, and people took to him quickly. The music helped. For when he played, it made him a focal point in these little taverns. And, when he was the center of attention, he forgot about a lot of things. Like the fact that Aziraphale was also in Ireland. Though, he’d only stopped by for a small, rather minor miracle. A sheep herder had gone terribly ill and was about to leave his three daughters behind on their own. A little snap of the fingers, and he’d be alright come morning. After that, Aziraphale had found the tavern. Had found Crowley. And had a rather wondrous time listening to him play.

The string instruments were Crowley’s favorite, though there was a time where he’d taken to a pan flute. That had been rather disastrous, and Crowley hadn’t picked up any sort of flute, clarinet, or horn since. A fiddle was right up his alley, though, because he could play it while he moved. While he stomped and danced on the table, and others in the tavern joined in. The patrons who couldn’t play were cheering along and drinking, and others were crafting words to the tune. None of them could quite agree, but Crowley didn’t really sing yet. He’d tried, once before, and decided not to do it again.

Aziraphale hadn’t _meant_ to laugh, really. It was the words, not the voice. Crowley had a lovely voice, and he might have played all the better with it. Time would lead to that, eventually. When Crowley felt it was right and not a moment before. Aziraphale just settled in for the show. He couldn’t help but tap his foot to the beat. Demons may not have been able to dance so well, but Crowley could keep a beat like no other human, angel, or demon Aziraphale had ever met. He hadn’t met many demons, really, but Crowley surely had talent. That was for sure. A talent for many, many things. Dancing wasn’t one of them, but he was more or less circling the tabletop anyway. Not dancing. Just stomping on with the patrons.

Then his tongue, of course. Aziraphale saw a snake’s while the humans saw what they would. There were glasses, too, but here, in Ireland, Crowley had very long hair that he kept done up in a loose braid. His look was one of his many, many talents. Always so well put together in his own way. Aziraphale couldn’t help but smile to himself and drink on of his pint, just waiting. Biding his time until Crowley noticed him, and he was bound to notice. Crowley had a talent for noticing Aziraphale. For finding him, really. But this time, Aziraphale had found him.

Abruptly, the music ended, when Crowley made one particular turn that head him staring straight at Aziraphale. The crowd booed, begged for more, and he came up with a rather poor excuse for jumping off the table. He still had his tips, though, and tucked those into his pack as he made his way across the room. He hadn’t even asked before sitting down at the table, where he leaned on with his elbows close to see. Aziraphale smiled, leaned away, and drank another sip.

“You’re here,” Crowley said, rather dumbly. “In Ireland. What for?”

“Quick miracle. Yourself?”

“Temptation, obviously.”

“And you tempt the humans with a fiddle now?” Aziraphale raised an eyebrow.

Crowley made a rather failed attempt to hide the fiddle underneath his chair. Not that Aziraphale hadn’t been sitting there for the past fifteen minutes watching him wail away with it. Still, Aziraphale chuckled and looked back out into the tavern. There were still musicians playing, but none quite as good as Crowley. The patrons seemed to agree, as many of them had gone back to their drinks and their tables. A bit of background noise never hurt anyone, though. And it was nice. Aziraphale continued to tap his foot, even if the rhythm wasn’t quite right.

“You’re good, you know. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m sure it gets humans in a certain mood, anyway,” Aziraphale smiled to himself.

“Yes, well. I thought it’d be a nice break. How did you find me here, anyway?”

“Well, I’ve been under the ruse as a physician since I arrived. After I appeared miraculously to save this old man’s life,” the miracle, “they told me that I ought to stop by the tavern before I continued on my travels. Something about a fabulous fiddle player around in the evenings.”

“Oh,” Crowley couldn’t move his face behind his hand fast enough to hide the red that rushed over him. A fabulous fiddler. That was a reputation he didn’t know that he had. Hearing it come from Aziraphale was definitely something, too. Something sweet, dangerous.

“You wouldn’t happen to be heading off for Russia anytime soon, would you?” Aziraphale asked, a bit sheepish about it, too.

“No, don’t think so,” Crowley shook his head. “You need something?”

“Oh, no. I was only going to ask if you were going, but I’ll mind it. Maybe we will meet again. Do you have plans to pick up another instrument?” Aziraphale finished off his drink and stood up. Crowley stood with him, always polite.

“I think I’ll stay around here for a bit and play. I like it. Like the people, too. There’s this red head that’s been eying me all night,” Crowley smirked.

“Yes, well. Please keep that to yourself. The less I know about your wiles, the better for both of us.”

Crowley laughed, “of course, angel. I’ll see you around then. Do enjoy the cold.”

“And you, the rain,” Aziraphale waved.

Aziraphale didn’t leave immediately, though. He still had a day or two of waiting around, just to ensure that the goat herder would be right back on his feet where he belonged. He even managed to pop by for another visit to see his daughters, who were all overly grateful that their father had made it through the illness. And then, on his way into town, he stopped by the tavern once more for something to eat on his travels. In the evening, of course, because he wanted the chance to see Crowley again. For the food, really, though. Crowley would just be. An added issue, yes. Aziraphale didn’t want to cross paths with that wily serpent. He was a demon, after all. That didn’t stop him from smiling when he saw Crowley back up on the table where he’d been two nights prior.

Oh, and _this time_, he was singing. Everything about his voice was magnificent, from the tune he could carry to the words coming out. Aziraphale wasn’t quite up to speed on the local dialect, but he could, without a doubt, make out the words ‘of an angel’s lips’. Whatever that possibly meant, they were perfectly lovely lyrics, and Aziraphale ducked out of the tavern just before the end of the song. There was no need for Crowley to catch him again.

Crowley had been playing music for ages. Aziraphale remembered their time in Rome quite well, long after they’d gone together for oysters. Crowley had dipped down into the marketplace just before evening dropped into night. There had still been people out and about, cleaning their things and packing away. That was the first time Aziraphale had ever heard him play the fiddle and heard quite distastefully sometime later about what had happened with a very particular fiddle. But that had happened much later. This fiddle playing, Aziraphale enjoyed.

Back in Rome, Crowley hadn’t drawn much of a crowd. A few people stopped by a flipped down a septum for him, but nothing more. No one sat to listen like Aziraphale did; Aziraphale had been his first real audience, he’d said. That was something ludicrous, but Crowley seemed genuine and touched on about it. Aziraphale had stayed, and that meant something more than the oysters and the bit about temptation. And things were turning quite quickly into a temptation, there, as the people disappeared, and night fell.

They were just people, for a moment. Not an angel and a demon, but people sitting together on a stone wall. One played the fiddle with the skill of trying something new, and the other listened like he was born to do. Crowley’s fingers plucked away, and he was so good at it, too. Already. The melody had been slow, Aziraphale still remembered it. It had been slow, but just enough of a beat to keep his foot tapping. Aziraphale thought he might have even learned to dance, if he could learn for that song. And, when he asked what that song was. Crowley had answered plainly.

“I think it’s a love song,” he said.

“Oh? Find someone you fancy, then? It’s probably not wise to dabble with the humans, you know. Lives so short, I don’t really think—”

“It’s fine, angel. I know what I’m doing,” and he smiled. Crowley smiled, once and true, with creases in his cheeks and up under his eyes. Back when his glasses had been small. Back when his yellow eyes still shone rather brightly in the dark, like this, close together.

“A love song,” Aziraphale mused. “It was rather pretty. I don’t think I’ve ever heard one before.”

“Me neither,” Crowley shrugged. He was lying, but that’s just what he did. He’d heard the very first love song, played centuries ago before instruments had been so fine as they were. He’d heard it, because he’d been the one tapping away at it. The humans picked up, and it was just another thing Crowley had done that had reared its ugly head back when he least expected it. In the streets of Rome, sitting beside Aziraphale. He made a little grumble noise and went back to picking at the fiddle while Aziraphale hummed the tune.

He wished Aziraphale would not hum the tune. It stirred something up that he most decidedly did _not_ like. He tucked it away for later, though, because their time together was coming to an end. Neither of them was staying in Rome _long_. It was just a brief encounter, even if Crowley did quite enjoy their briefest of moments. Aziraphale was, well. Aziraphale. That was all Crowley would let him be, to him, because it was less dangerous. Less talking about the first love songs, anyway, which he wasn’t doing. He wasn’t about to tell Aziraphale he’d invented love songs, not while he was playing one. Not while the chance for Aziraphale to figure it out was right there on the tip of his nose.

So, he just played. Played and played and played until Aziraphale was ready to leave for other arrangements. Even then, he stayed for one more song. The same song. The same song Crowley had been playing for him for hours without so much as a word between them. On repeat. Until Aziraphale knew it by heart and hummed it when they bid their goodbyes and went opposite directions. Opposite directions were always better. They were on opposite sides, in opposite directions, doing opposite things. Maybe it all canceled out at the end but canceling out didn’t make a middle point where they would meet. Crowley settled for watching Aziraphale walk away before picking up his fiddle and leaving, too.

After Ireland, though, Crowley put the fiddle down and tried something similar. It was time to put up the little instruments and go for something larger. In the 17th century, he’d gotten his hands on an upright bass and played it with all the skill and class of a master. It hadn’t taken long for someone with a practiced talent, not a magic one, to take notice of him. In hindsight, it would have been better for no one to notice him, but at the time, he couldn’t pass up the chance. Something about fame appealed to him on so many levels, ever since he’d first started catching wind of a reputation, and what reputations meant to humans. It all just felt so overly indulgent and wonderful. How could a demon not partake?

That was how he found himself in a white suit, in a music hall, sitting near the front with his new bass some odd months later. He didn’t need to practice, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a part of him that wasn’t nervous. Still, when the lights went down and the baton started to move, he played. He played just like he always did, without even glancing at the music. He knew it by heart, and the parts he didn’t were easy enough to think about in the following seconds. Humans wouldn’t know the difference, anyway.

Someone did know the difference, though. Listening out in the first row, tapping his foot along to the beat. Crowley _carried_ the beat, and that was the point of the bass section, anyway. To carry a beat. That didn’t mean Crowley had to do it so well, and that certainly didn’t mean it had to be Crowley. Aziraphale was rather put off by it, actually, to see Crowley sitting there in his pristine white suit, his black tie, his glasses. Entirely inappropriate, really, for a demon to be doing something so positively heavenly. The music was practically angelic, the way it all weaved together so beautiful. And it was _Crowley_ helping them along. If only Aziraphale could control his foot. It was unfair. All of it was entirely unfair.

Aziraphale had been attending orchestra performances since humans invented them, and he loved each one with a growing passion. Humans were so creative and talented; their music was there to show it off. Even as it dragged on for hours, Aziraphale could listen to it. It reminded him of so many things, and so many things were being shoved into his face now. Because those things were _Crowley_ things; things where he had listened to him fiddle in the marketplace for hours just because he could. On multiple occasions, he’d listened to Crowley like that. He remembered, pointedly, finding Crowley lounging on an ivy-covered wall plucking at a lute. Entirely. Unnecessary.

And now, he was watching the way Crowley cradled the neck of his bass up against his cheek. The soft and subtle way his fingers moved against the strings. How he drew the bow, back and forth. The motion of it was smooth and simple, never faltering. Crowley didn’t hesitate, and every now and again, Aziraphale could hear the notes he missed. In a now private concert, he heard only Crowley. So deeply that he could hear the friction between the bow and the strings before the sound was produced, even if the sound was quite the loveliest thing Aziraphale had ever heard. A sound that choked up in the back of his throat and held there until his eyes had watered.

Crowley looked so. In love. With the music. Like he could play it forever, alone, and never be happier in that moment. And Aziraphale thought about the lute, all at once. Crowley had played a lute for a very long while, during the 15th century. Before the fiddle had even been invented and became his newfound love. That lute had been the prettiest sound to Aziraphale’s ears, and soured. It had been the reason, of course, for Aziraphale’s intense notion that Crowley should not dabble with humans. Tempt them to each other, fine, but Crowley had—Crowley had played that lute for someone else. Aziraphale hadn’t learned his name until later, Leonardo, or something. Or something, quite on purpose, because Aziraphale knew him. Everyone knew him.

He’d died and made his work all the more famous, but that didn’t matter. Crowley had played his lute for him in the quiet hours of the evening when there was no reason to be awake. The same lute that Aziraphale had only heard once; it had only begun Crowley’s fascination with the stringed instruments. And his instruments were getting larger. He was getting more skilled. He played that upright bass like he’d known it for centuries, in the most intimate way possible. And it was a song of nothing less than _love._ A love song.

By the time it ended, Aziraphale dabbed at his eyes with his handkerchief and didn’t move from his seat. Not until the hall had cleared and the musicians were cleaning up. When he was asked by one of the attendants to leave, his excuse was simple. He knew one of the musicians and had plans to meet with them. The attendant didn’t know better than to question, so Aziraphale was left alone. Alone, and feeling quite the same, as he watched Crowley _dabble_ with them. They talked, like friends, and laughed. Crowley even helped one of them pack away their violin, which sent a sensation not too unlike jealous through Aziraphale—what a ridiculous idea. Jealously. He was an angel. He didn’t _need_ jealously. Or Crowley.

That didn’t stop him from waiting by the door, outside, until Crowley finally came through. After the rest had gone. He stepped out of the back door and set his case against the building before leaning into it. Aziraphale watched him pull out a pipe to smoke. Crowley had a great many indulgences, being a demon, but smoking was probably the one Aziraphale didn’t like. He didn’t care much for the smell or the potential damage it could cause the humans. Crowley was fine. Crowley would always be fine in his tight pants and white suit. Always.

Aziraphale cleared his throat.

“Ah, Aziraphale!” Crowley greeted, quite happily. He even put out his pipe, which he had not just done up seconds before. Aziraphale couldn’t help but notice. “Didn’t see you there. Are you in town for a quick—”

“No,” Aziraphale said, “I was here for a break. I came to see the orchestra.”

“Yeah? You enjoy it? Crazy things these humans come up with.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale said.

“Yes, angel?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?”

“Oh,” Aziraphale stomped his foot, “don’t play stupid! You were there. You were in the orchestra! I saw you, and you aren’t even trying to hide it. Your bass is right here,” Aziraphale pointed to it.

“It’s not as though we take to normal correspondence,” Crowley shrugged. “Should I have sent you a messenger pigeon?”

“That’s not the point, Crowley! You know how much I love the orchestra, so why wouldn’t you at least—?”

“Think of you?” Crowley raised an eyebrow. “Why didn’t I at least spare a thought to wonder if you would be here to see me?” Crowley pushed away from the wall and shoved his hands in his pockets. He deigned enough to sneer and roll his eyes. “Sorry, angel. Next time I’ll send the pigeon.”

“Crowley, wait, that’s not—” but Crowley was picking up his bass and walking off.

“Next time,” Crowley turned and looked at him, “if you want a private showing, maybe ask for it, yeah? Don’t come crying two centuries later because I’m living and you’re watching.”

That shocked Aziraphale into silence. A century old scar was just sitting there, open, between them. Festering. Aziraphale should have realized that’s what he was angry about when it was all he could muse on over during the show. Because he wanted Crowley to play for _him_, not for the world. Not for Leonardo. For _him._ Crowley probably knew that, too. Something about that hurt worse than the actual yelling had, because Crowley _knew_, and he wouldn’t do anything about it.

Rightfully so, however. Crowley walked away with his pipe shoved back between his lips and anger etched into his face. If Aziraphale was going to sit around and deny his own thoughts, Crowley would let him. Anything that would make this look like a Demon tempting an Angel to sin was not on his list of things that would happen. So, he turned to music instead. He would need to turn to it again, to get this horrid thing out of his head. He _wouldn__’t_ be the Demon who tempted an Angel. He refused. That wasn’t what this was about—Aziraphale had to know that, but he was too caught up in some loyalty to Heaven that he refused to believe in the possibility that _something_ might exist beyond the duty he’d been given.

If that’s what he wanted, then Crowley would let him.

On the way past the channel, Crowley threw his bass into the water. If that’s how Aziraphale felt, then Crowley would be damned to keep him feeling that way. There would be no more string instruments, if that’s what the angel wanted. He could keep all the memory of Crowley on strings to himself, if that’s what he wanted. And be damned he should be for it. Crowley hoped the memory kept him company, because the present would do no such thing. _He_ would do no such thing, not after that. Until Aziraphale wanted more than the idea he’d come up with in his head, Crowley would fraternize, fuck, and frolic with whom he so damn well pleased. And, he would play music.

The symphony he’d played, he’d helped construct. It wasn’t until two weeks later, after Crowley was long gone and without a bass to play, that Aziraphale bothered to look at the programme he’d been given. A symphony of Heaven’s Dearest. Aziraphale eventually threw the programme in the channel, too. That was the end of that.

And, then, it was Germany on a particularly stormy night. Aziraphale was traveling between towns, and the storm had been enough to put a stop to that. He was nowhere in particular, and the only place to take shelter for the evening looked to be a rather decrepit pub sitting just off the road. To anyone else, it might not have looked such a friendly place to go, but Aziraphale could _feel_ the love that radiated off of it. The people who frequented it were kind and caring people who thought of each other like family, not customers and business. The place thrived because the community wanted it to, and even though the outside dripped and dimmed, the inside was alive with light and. Music. Oh, it was _music._

Aziraphale stepped inside, and the music was that of a piano. The song was fast, upbeat. A good dancing song, given the way the patrons were swinging about each other in the cleared-out space. Tables had been moved aside so they could dance along to the piano. Whoever was sitting at that piano _knew_ how to play it, and they played it masterfully. After Aziraphale ordered himself something to eat, something large, and picked a table to sit where he could see who played the piano. A shock of red hair that he knew, that he recognized. The tattoo on the side of his face—no.

Why was it always, _always_ Crowley? Crowley and his fiendish fingers, and then it was _worse._ He opened his mouth, and he sang to the tune. Something fiery, feisty, and so, _so_ like Crowley. Aziraphale cursed himself as he tapped his foot to the beat. Heavens, what a beat. It was unfair. Aziraphale could sit here and listen to this for the rest of the night; it was powerful enough to ignore the rain, to play right over top of it. There was probably a bit of magic involved, but who was Aziraphale to say anything about that? He was enjoying the music, too, demon magic tainted and all.

The problem remained was that Crowley had seen him. He’d looked over mid verse and saw Aziraphale humming along, tapping his foot and drinking merrily to the song. And. Something soured. Crowley brushed it off and shouted that the tavern sing with him, instead. They carried on in the tune just as well, even if they all seemed a bit tone deaf. Crowley’s voice had matched the music like he’d made it for himself. And he probably had, when the lyrics came out in perfect unison from the tavern-goers. An epic ballad made for dancing, and what a demon thing to create. Aziraphale tapped along to it, all the while, keeping his eyes on Crowley. Even if Crowley didn’t look particularly happy for it.

After the song finished, a young man approached Crowley with a coin in his hand. They talked for a moment while the patrons returned to their chairs, and then, when Crowley seemed to agree, he took the coin from the young man’s fingers. Crowley had no real reason for money, but that didn’t mean he didn’t take it when it was offered. He had appearances to keep up, anyway, and stealing was only fine if he didn’t get caught. Miracles were something else, nothing that Aziraphale knew. He assumed that miracles were looked at differently in Hell than they were in Heaven, but surely, Crowley couldn’t have just appeared all of his clothes. They were rather fine. Right down to the snakeskin shoes he always seemed to wear.

Then, a song started. The man had requested something specific and gone off to take the hand of his lady and lead her to the cleared-out space. The song was slow, and Crowley played it with all the passion of a forlorn lover. Aziraphale _recognized_ the song. Recognized it in a painful beat as he remembered the hours they had spent in the streets of Rome while Crowley played this exact tune for him. He’d called it a love song then, and surely, now, it was still a love song. Aziraphale saw how the young couple danced together on the wooden floors, shoes tapping along off-beat as they did. Other couples joined, and the dance was slow. Several thousand years slow, but Aziraphale was helpless to do anything but listen.

It was when Crowley sang that Aziraphale felt that choked up squeeze in the back of his throat, like he had at the music hall so many, many years ago. And Crowley—what an amazing voice he had. When he had been an angel, he must have sung for the choirs. He must have sung for God Herself. She would have wanted that. Aziraphale believed so with everything he was. And now, he sang for the people. He sang for humans, who danced to the tune and carried it in the heads as much as their hearts.

_The piano man_, the whispers came. Aziraphale heard them in the back of the pub, people talking about Crowley. He traveled farther than Germany, and this was not to be his last stop. One of the patrons said he’d heard stories about this man all the way from Spain. Crowley certainly did get around, and he certainly liked to travel. He’d made a name for himself, already, and it seemed to be paying. Even as the song continued, Aziraphale could see the woman behind the bar readying a pack of payment for him. And all for a love song.

Aziraphale didn’t understand, but when Crowley finished, he clapped. The whole tavern clapped after, but Aziraphale had started it. He stared on after Crowley, who kept his eyes sorely pointed on the keys in painful pointedness. They didn’t talk. Crowley took his sack of change, shoved it into his coat, and disappeared upstairs for the rest of the night. He’d been offered a room to blow the storm over in, for as long as it would last, for his wonderful entertainment of the night. Aziraphale didn’t bother with a room, in contrast. Going upstairs now felt too out of place. Crowley clearly had no interest in seeing him, and that old wound just. Festered again, longer.

By morning, when Crowley came back downstairs from a nice long sleep, Aziraphale was gone.

Crowley played the piano while those who’d stayed the night woke up and had their breakfast. He played it long and slow, drawn out on fingertips that _longed_ for something just out of reach. For as long as it would be just out of reach, he would reach after. Surely, if he only reached a little longer, a little farther. He might catch it. Though, something that did not want to be caught was hardest of all to catch. Crowley knew that. He’d watched humans long enough to know what a chase looked like, and his chase would be played out slowly in the breath of Hell, it seemed. On piano keys in a quiet tavern on a Sunday morning where no one could hear him but the birds and the early risers.

It wasn’t until Crowley had faded back into obscurity in the late 1800s that he decided to pick up a string instrument again. He’d made a rather famous name of himself as a composer, a pianist, named Anton Crow. Fame had been fun, fleeting, and fast. Even so, he had enjoyed playing the piano. It had been wonderful, lovely, and he would never forget how to play. It had helped him craft beautiful melodies that just weren’t quite the same on the strings, but he had an itch. It happened specifically after he walked by a shop with one in the window, a little thing called a mandolin. He’d never played one before, never much seen one, but it perked his interest well enough. The itch to get his fingers back on strings came back, and he bought it a moment later.

He did try to tell himself, uselessly, that this had nothing to do with wandering into a shop not three hours earlier and seeing Aziraphale talking with some _chap_ over a spot of tea. And how cozy they looked together, leaning across the table to be in each other’s air. Dabbling with humans—if Aziraphale ever tried lecturing him on the subject again, Crowley might snap. He hadn’t snapped, and he wouldn’t snap, not beyond purchasing a mandolin. It couldn’t be too different from the rest of the strings he’d played, though it had been a long enough time. Still, when he propped himself up by the fountain in the square, his fingers just seemed to remember.

The fountain may have been just outside that shop, but that wasn’t the point. The mandolin was a plucky little thing, and once Crowley got the hang of it, he found the tune quite easily. A happy little thing that was very easily betrayed by the sour look on his face, but the glasses helped so he didn’t seem too angry. People passed on by, and a few tossed him a tip. He appreciated the tips. Craved them, even, sometimes—but there was something better that he needed. Something he was searching for, now, in one long cord of self-harm. Something he rather had no business doing, but sometimes there was something to be said for the _ache_ and the way it kept him aware of things. Of himself. Of the things that he could feel, really. Even if Heaven told him he couldn’t.

So, when Aziraphale walked out of the shop on the arm of that _chap_, Crowley did feel something. Something like anger, or jealousy, or something. Something, something. And it was all the same things he’d yelled at Aziraphale for, once. A long time ago, though he remembered it sound and well as yesterday. Annoying, it was indeed. Because he couldn’t bring himself to say anything, either. All he did was stare and write the songs about it. Songs that Aziraphale heard but didn’t know. Not yet. Crowley could keep writing them until he knew, until he understood. If he ever did, and pray that he did, of course. To no one in particular, because no one answered the prayers of a demon. Still, Crowley would do it. Into the strings of his brand-new mandolin, well enough that it was the _chap_ who pulled them both to a stop.

“Marvelous,” he said. “You don’t see many talented street performers these days.”

“No, I don’t suppose you do,” Aziraphale was too busy staring. Crowley stared back, a sideways smirk on his face, and how the glasses helped. Another second, then, Aziraphale’s eyebrows went up. “Oh—Oh, Crowley?”

“You know him?” the _chap_ said. Crowley stopped playing.

“I do, oh. Go on ahead, Oscar,” Aziraphale said. “I’ll catch up. He’s an old friend of mine.”

“Of course. I’ll see you in a bit, then, angel.”

Crowley was _flaming._

Aziraphale turned his attention to Crowley, then, and that settled just a bit of the fire. None of the stupidity, though; nor the painful bit of irony on Aziraphale walking arm and arm with a human. Crowley grit his teeth down to try and ignore it best he could, even managed a poorly crafted smile. One of his worse fake ones, and Aziraphale was no stranger to those smiles. Fake or real—Aziraphale knew the difference, and he put his hands on his hips. They just stared at each other, the burning question doing enough talking all the while. Was this about the lute thing? Most definitely. Would Aziraphale admit to that? Not a chance. Eventually, Aziraphale just sighed and dropped his hands.

“I see you’ve picked a new instrument.”

“Yeah,” Crowley plucked at it again. “Brand new. You like?”

“I don’t think I’ve gotten to hear much of it. You stopped the moment you spotted us.”

“Spotted _him_, but yeah. You’re right. Pop down, and I’ll play you a song. Any one you like, angel. Promise.”

Aziraphale gave him the most sympathetic look he could manage before shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Crowley. I’ve got a prior engagement. I can’t stay.”

“Then—invite him back. I’ll be nice, promise. Sit with me, angel,” Crowley stood up, his arms outstretched, and holding the mandolin by its neck.

“Not this time, Crowley. Perhaps next I see you,” said very much like Aziraphale didn’t plan on seeing Crowley again for a long time. He even glanced off, down the path, where _Oscar_ was waiting for him with a worried look on his face. The look on Aziraphale’s face was altogether different in comparison. Painful, even, and Crowley knew he’d never win. No. He didn’t sorely have a chance, at that.

When Aziraphale walked away, Crowley let him. He plopped back down on the wall and plucked out another song. Sadder, this time, and lonely. His love song, if only a slightly different melody. A slightly off-beat tune. A bit like a pulse when he was elsewhere, outside of his body and in his head, instead, where he could hear a thought that had no place in reality. Four letter words were nothing more than an inconvenience, things he should have never thought to dabble in. Not with an angel, of every creature he could have picked. Never an angel. Maybe any angel other than _that_ angel. Someone else was calling him angel, now, and all Crowley could do was pluck his name in cords.

By the time evening fell, Crowley hadn’t made anything more in tips, but he had made way to lie down on the wall to continue his playing. And he played, eyes closed, in another place where Aziraphale had stayed to listen. This was just his punishment for waiting too long, for trying to take the high road. Not willing to be the one to _take_, so Aziraphale was taken. Funny, how that worked. And a thought crossed his mind that played well with the tune in his fingertips; a chuckle, then, rather singing instead of talking:

“Do you have a sense of humor, God?” he asked. He _sang_. The woman who walked by gave him a strange look and assumed a drunken bastard. Fair enough and probably correct.

No answer came, because God didn’t answer a demon’s prayers. God specifically did not answer Crowley’s prayers. Not once. Not even his questions. His questions had landed him in a boiling pit of sulfur with blacked wings and _damnation._ What a gift.

“Are you watching me? Do you think I’m _funny_?” he strummed. “Are you thinking of me, too? Oh—do you have a sense of humor, God? And do I humor you?”

Crowley laughed to himself and dropped one arm down off the wall. _That_ was certainly no love song, and he would scarcely ever think to write one for Her. For She certainly worked in mysterious ways, and Crowley decided that mystery wasn’t all that attractive, anyway. He’d rather have everything bare, down to the bones, so that he would _know._ No secrets. Purely something founded on the ides of trust and love. A something quite like wishful thinking.

By the time he’d finally found nerve enough to stand, he was humming his own fretful tune and leaving his new mandolin behind on the wall. It was better to be without it and the memories it had no doubt taken up in to the fine, cherry wood. Crowley didn’t need help remembering; he remembered enough as it was. Too much and not enough, all at once. All at once and never again. Crowley whistled as he walked on down the street, kicking his feet just a little higher than normal. It wasn’t cheer but a sick perversion of it where he’d Fallen just a little further and felt the only way to stay above the water now was to laugh louder and smile wider than anyone he could meet.

And he did not meet Aziraphale.

Until some odd years later, where Crowley played the violin at Oscar’s funeral. Not because Aziraphale had asked, but because Crowley knew. This was another moment of savior. Another time where Crowley swooped down and swiped until Aziraphale was no longer in any sort of danger, but this wasn’t real danger. Not mortal danger, if mortality was the danger itself. It was the first time he’d ever seen Aziraphale wear black, and it had struck such a painful cord in his melody that Crowley found himself unable to sing the words. Everything was silent, after that, save the music. The music and the sniffling, of course, and then it was over. Just like that. Quite as if he’d never been there at all, but the shadow had remained as proof. Right in the crevices of Aziraphale’s cuffs.

“I loved him, Crowley,” Aziraphale said.

“I know you did, angel.”

They didn’t speak, after that. They drank, oh they drank, but they did not speak. And afterward, at the inn, Crowley sat on the windowsill and played the violin. Aziraphale had tried to read, had tried to work, but found it quite impossible. There was nothing left for him to do but listen to the song Crowley played in long, sweet draws of his bow. His eyes were closed and his cheek, ever nestled against the chinrest, was creased up in all the funniest sort of ways. Only, Aziraphale couldn’t find it within himself to laugh. Instead, he found himself sitting on the floor at Crowley’s feet swaying in tune to the song. A slow song. A long song. A love song.

Crowley’s songs picked up in tempo when the 1930s rolled around. He’d tried the bass once and had no pleasant memories for doing so, but this one was _electric._ It had a sleek, red body, and Crowley had been eying for all of three painful minutes before he bought it. No preamble, no thought, just a purchase. One single purchase like it might erase the memories the first bass had done. Surely, it would be different. There would be no orchestras and tight stuffy clothing. The sound wasn’t the same. It was better, Crowley thought. Much better. Much more his _style, _with a hiss. Oh, and a hiss indeed. The style was picking up. Harder music. Heavier. Rougher. Just the sort of thing a demon might do.

Not just for being a demon, though. Crowley had been made a bit rough around the edges; a piece of God’s humorous, ineffable plan, he always assumed. This was the sort of thing he’d been looking for since the first time two rocks had hit together more than once in some vague idea of a tune. Rather ironic then, that they called it rock. The clever humans, and oh how Crowley admired them for their talent. He could match that talent, if he tried, and he could do better. He would just need a group, he decided. It wouldn’t be the first group, but he was determined to make it the best. Miracles aside; it wasn’t like Hell was counting.

Even if they were, the count would have been zero. He started a group the way anyone would: the hard way. Meeting people, talking to them. It wasn’t hard, exactly, to sway people to his side. A natural charm of a demon or the devil’s luck. Whatever it was, finding people wasn’t the part that bothered him. Finding _skill_, on the other hand, was incredibly difficult and bothered him immensely. Refusing to settle was getting him nowhere, after a sore week and a half. So, he settled. He settled for a subpar guitarist in turn for a relatively good drummer. She had potential, at least. A lot of it, and Crowley could work with that. Two for three was good enough, and he would cover the rest of everything. Singing to the venues that popped up _as if by magic._

Magic, indeed.

Within two weeks, _Eve__’s Bite_ was an overnight sensation, and only because no one had been around for the first thirteen nights. That was the bit with the practicing and the local venues before Crowley thought a little extra miracle was worth it. Now his drummer girl was a seasoned professional and the guitarist could at least carry a beat. Crowley would do the rest, and he had done the rest. He was the face of _Eve__’s Bite _and the basis for the sudden and wild popularity. Part of the allure was his _mystery. _Nobody knew his name—he was just _Crowley._ And what an icon he’d become with his signature glasses, the long hair—there wasn’t a fan who didn’t swoon, male or female.

One fan in particular, though, didn’t so much as swoon as he did look over a rather tastefully printed poster with a forlorn look stitched into his brows. Aziraphale brushed over the poster before he looked on at the venue. It wasn’t his scene, and it never would be. His outfit didn’t match, nor did his demeanor. Walking in was sure to land him in a world of embarrassment and confusion—worse, what if Crowley saw him? Crowley didn’t need to know that he would stoop to listening to a genre that had never interested him, as long as it was _Crowley_ playing. Crowley and his bass and happier memories. Aziraphale looked a moment longer at the poster before he decided it was best to walk away and leave it at that.

When _Eve__’s Bite_ released their first vinyl, Aziraphale would buy it. He would play it on his record player in the back of his bookshop and hope Crowley never found out. He would buy every vinyl _Eve__’s Bite_ released, even the greatest hits, the replays. The limited-edition gold vinyl. He would own them all, shoved away in the back where not a soul would know. Because he loved the way Crowley played. Loved the way that he sounded. But more than that, it was a curiosity. Crowley had never been particularly religions in a human sense, and certainly not in the sense of a once-angel. Aziraphale had gone on thinking he _hated_ God, and he had quite the reason to believe he was right. The subject was touchy.

But the songs. So many of them talked about Heaven, about angels and demons, about everything in between. Some of them even sounded reminiscent of a tune Crowley had played him so long ago. Oh, he’d called the tune a love song, which left Aziraphale feeling slightly warm. He shouldn’t be so base about this, or so conceited. He and Crowley were hardly on speaking terms. Singing terms didn’t particularly feel real, but Aziraphale did have less than a perfect understanding of human traditions. Crowley always had the better idea. It’s how he was able to do this. To create something all on his own. Something _beautiful_, too. Aziraphale’s heart ached on for it, but he kept his collection to himself to listen to on the darkest of nights. The loneliest ones.

_Eve__’s Bite_ fell when the bombs did. The panic that scattered the world. The drummer girl had disappeared in the rabble, and the guitarist had thought himself some kind of hero. He joined the war. Crowley did what Crowley did best—took advantage of the situation. He’d all but disappeared, really. And things went on, as they always did. In painful ways. The vinyls had been all Aziraphale still had of Crowley. The 1800s had been so, so bad for them. With the funeral, the violin, and the holy water. Crowley had taken a very, very long nap somewhere in there, too. They hadn’t seen each other once, not in all that time. And Aziraphale hadn’t been strong enough to visit a performance, which left them here. So many miles apart, and what a world it would be to learn if Crowley had grown to hate him. In all that time. Too much time. And ever how life went on.

Until it wouldn’t, not indefinitely. Not conveniently, anyway. Not with a gun in his face. Aziraphale had been positively turned around upside-down and ruined. Discorporation seemed a proper ending to such a failure, but all at once. The most beautiful music he had ever heard in the form of disjointed footsteps and grumbling. In the form of Crowley. In a church. A church. The last place a demon should ever tread. There was Crowley, marching to the beat of his own tune right down the middle aisle like his feet were on fire, but he was _there._

“Anthony?” Aziraphale asked quite like no time had ever dropped away between them. Like they were still friends. As if they had ever been friends. That they hadn’t been fighting for over a century for nothing in particular.

“You don’t like it?” And Crowley still _cared._

“No, no, I didn’t say that. I’ll get used to it.”

When Crowley, when Anthony, even, handed him the bag of books not ten minutes later in the rubble, he could’ve sworn he could hear Crowley’s love song. Somewhere in the distance where shadows must have played. And they wouldn’t talk about it. They never talked about it. Talking about it meant there was something to talk about, and they would both rather say that there nothing was. Talking was difficult. This was easy. Being friends. Being together like this. In simplistic chatter in the Bentley—Aziraphale _missed_ the Bentley. He missed Crowley. He missed listening to him play, and oh, if there was time. There was never time. Not yet. Soon enough, there would be.

Even if _Eve__’s Bite_ didn’t return after the war was over, Crowley still did. His first solo-act armed with a bass guitar and an impassable charm. There were others with him, always, because a bass guitar was not enough for a group. But they were nameless, faceless. When people talked about the music, they talked about Crowley. They talked about Anthony J. Crowley and the skill in his fingertips, on his tongue when he sang. And always with such finesse, such meaning. Aziraphale turned the radio up when they played Crowley’s songs, when they spent a segment just talking about him. The finesse was always mentioned—his songs had meaning. They were so full of life and love, and things Aziraphale didn’t know anything about.

His most popular song at the time was called _Wings_. Nothing more, and nothing less. Aziraphale would have played it on repeat if there had been a way. He would have even asked for that private showing Crowley sneered at him so long ago, but there wasn’t time enough in the world in Anthony J. Crowley’s life for anyone, anymore. Nothing but the music. Nothing but the songs. Aziraphale knew them all by heart, of course, so it still felt like Crowley was popping by to see him every now and again. It was better that he didn’t, though. Drop by to see him. Aziraphale tried to believe that, best he could. Best he would never. He missed Crowley and filled the emptiness with a song called _Don__’t Fall._

_Fall, fall, fall, if that__’s what you need. But don’t fall from heaven, and don’t fall for me_.

Anthony J. Crowley enjoyed a life of fame far longer than stars tended to. Clean living, something or other, but he lived well and in lavish style. He had no friends and drank outrageous amounts of alcohol, but his personal life was of no one’s business but his own. And his business was that of writing whatever came to his head. He couldn’t talk for shite, but he could write. He could write, and he could sing, and he would hope better that his point would make it through this way. It never did, or it did and went quite unrequited. Crowley would believe either idea, and usually took it well with a glass of blanc. A bottle. If the glass was sized like a bottle, surely, it would still be a glass.

Then, the 1970s rolled around. Anthony J. Crowley continued to attribute his good looks to his lifestyle. Always healthy, he boasted to the media. It had been somewhere in the neighborhood of twenty-nine to thirty-five years; Crowley didn’t look a day older and certainly wasn’t counting what his age should be, by now. People were enamored enough. People were enamored with a new group, all the same. They called themselves _Queen_, and Crowley quite agreed with the sentiment. The sound was quite unlike anything he’d ever heard and something he’d quite wished he could take credit for. It was sinful, positively. Negatively, really, but it put all the right people in the right moods. For dancing and lust and love. Crowley wanted to partake in all three. He settled on attempting to meet the group. It wasn’t hard, even then, for celebrities to meet celebrities. Freddie Mercury, on his own, was becoming _quite_ the celebrity.

It was on a rare summer night that Crowley received his invitation. There had been a moment where he’d thought to extend his plus one to Aziraphale, but it wasn’t anywhere or with anyone Aziraphale would be caught dead—or alive—with. It wasn’t his _scene_, so to say, so Crowley didn’t even bother with a phone call. It had been ages since they’d seen each other, but Crowley kept writing his songs. Kept producing his songs. Kept hoping that Aziraphale would hear them and know everything he was too much a coward to say himself. Better to forget it all, then, and that’s precisely what he did.

At the party, Crowley wined and dined like royalty. He drank, he ate, and he smoked. He remembered it quite plainly, as the party died down, and he’d found himself on the couch with Freddie Mercury’s feet in his lap. They smoked together, talked, and laughed like friends. Crowley _missed_ having friends, but he’d forgotten all about it. What, with the drugs, the alcohol, the banter, friends were the last thing on his mind. Especially if Freddie wanted to be his friend. All problems solved quite at once, and Crowley was all the happier for it.

“Do you ever miss it?” Crowley asked, eventually. His head was hanging over the back of the couch, and at some point, Freddie had lost his shoes.

“Miss what?”

“The quiet time. I used to visit this rather stuck up fellow at his bookshop, and we’d drink. Much like this.”

“Stuck up?” Freddie laughed. “Seems a harsh thing to have drinks with a man you don’t care for.”

“Oh, no. I cared for him. Quite a lot.”

“Oh?” Freddie situated himself better, elbow on the back of his couch to support his head. “Now, that does sound like a story. Something happen?”

“I guess you could say I’m not his type,” and he swirled the joint in his fingers for better emphasis. “Not _holy_ enough.”

Freddie grinned, “religious type, then?”

“You could certainly say that.”

Freddie looked like he had mind to say a few things, but he took another hit and closed his eyes instead.

The night, from there, happened in a variety of different fashions depending on what media one would subscribe to. Aziraphale, an ever-growing love of knowledge, subscribed to all of them. He heard it the first report came out about how Anthony J. Crowley had spent the night at Freddie Mercury’s home. His rather large, spacious, empty home. Quite under the guise that they had spent the night there alone, and the stories spiraled out of control from there. Questions that media and people alike had no business with the answers to. Aziraphale had always believed in the better privacy of those fortunate or unfortunate enough to have their names in the spotlight, but even he was curious. Jealous, even. Jealous was a better word, but angels didn’t need jealousy, and neither did Aziraphale. He did need to know. Did Crowley really, after all this time, find someone else?

Aziraphale had never had a television, and he didn’t want one, but the shops out on the street always played the important things out in the windows. When Aziraphale walked by them, he would stop. He did stop at the first mention of interviews. _Queen_ had one of their biggest press coverages completely derailed when the conversation was overtaken with question about the night—about Freddie. And in contrast, Anthony J. Crowley had completely disappeared. He’d never showed for his interview, for the questions he was no doubt going to be bombarded with. Going to the party had been a mistake. Staying the night hadn’t so much been, but the aftermath was enough to destroy anything that could have come. Disappearing was probably a worse choice. Not speaking to the public just showed he had everything to hide, and he did. He had everything to hide. And he had always known just where to go when came time to hide.

At the side of the shop, where the couch was set up near the desk, Crowley was entirely splayed out with a book folded over his face. Light had been streaming through the window, and while that was wonderful for a snake-nap, it was not so for the bit about the eyes. He might have even spared time to read the book, but somewhere between the first three words and Aziraphale walking in, he’d fallen asleep. Awoken only by the sudden gasp of a rather offended shop owner, and Crowley wouldn’t blame him. Not for that. He sat up and set the book aside.

“Aziraphale,” he said. A rather poor greeting.

“It’s been quite some time,” Aziraphale responded, just as dumbly as Crowley. They each stared at the other for a long and lingering, heavy moment. Until Crowley finally worked up the courage to breathe and breathless breath.

“I’m sorry, angel. About everything.”

“Was it true?”

Crowley stiffened.

“About you and…?”

Crowley just sighed and scooted to the side of the couch. He patted the cushions for Aziraphale to sit beside him, and once they were both sitting in equal measures uncomfortable and awkward, Crowley spoke. He told Aziraphale about everything. Everything that Aziraphale had missed in the past century, since they’d seen each other. Right through the songs, the alcohol. Up until the moment he’d stayed the night in Freddie’s bed, and everything was true. Not quite as spectacular as the media had described it, since neither of them much remembered the tumble, but it had happened. Of, that Crowley was sure. And, on top of it all, he apologized. Profusely.

There was nothing Aziraphale could say in the wake of that. His throat was a mess of lumps and fear, but there was nothing to say. Crowley’s apology had been genuine, and then, what was there to apologize for? Crowley was on his own. Just as always. He’d never had any obligation to Aziraphale, not a one. The arrangement had been convenient and nothing more. They were barely friends. Hereditary enemies. Absolutely nothing, on the worst of days, when Crowley left. And still—Crowley apologized. Crowley looked at him with big, yellow eyes, open and so vulnerable. There was nothing Aziraphale could say.

“I shouldn’t have come,” Crowley said, and he pushed off the couch. He might have hoped to stay for a drink, but the look on Aziraphale’s face said nothing of the sort would happen. So, Crowley left. He walked out of the shop with his glasses pushed up tight on his nose. Away from Aziraphale. Just one more time.

Aziraphale wished he would have said something. If there had been something to say. He wanted to welcome Crowley into his arms and tell him he was forgiven—but then what? Did he want to kiss Crowley? Did he want to say he was jealous? That he wanted what Crowley had given to Freddie? What an absurd idea, absolutely and irrevocably. They were a demon and an angel. Aziraphale had to remember that. Needed it branded into his skin if that was the only way it would happen. His feelings weren’t just a sin—they were unforgivable. He would fall for them, wouldn’t he? He surely would. And neither of them wanted that.

As far as the world was concerned, Anthony J. Crowley had overdosed in some backwater motel in the middle of nowhere on an imaginary abroad trip to America. What the world didn’t know was that the Anti-Christ had been born, and Crowley as himself had returned to business as usual. He still wrote his songs, though, and kept them safe in a notebook at his bedside. It was just, given the situation, Aziraphale was suddenly never far. They didn’t talk about the past, in their way, and carried on. They met in the park, they met for lunch, and they met to watch over Warlock as he grew. Crowley wrote his songs, and Aziraphale listened to all the old records and all the old symphonies Crowley had created.

Crowley had once created the stars, and that power was in those songs. Aziraphale just wished, for a given second, he could understand Crowley’s work. For the imagery, the sound he produced. All of it was so terribly familiar. Tantalizing and begging Aziraphale to take a step closer, but what could it have meant? Crowley didn’t speak the way he sang, and he sang in such poetry and lyrics that it was impossible to do anything but feel so heavily at the sound of his voice. In person, in demon, he was rough. He sat with his legs too wide, with his shirt too far open, with his eyes too attentive. Crowley was too much. Too fast. He always had been—but his music. Aziraphale could listen to him forever.

Only, if forever was to come. He was certain he knew how to end Armageddon before it began, and he couldn’t invite Crowley on one last ride for it. Heaven would listen to him; he knew they would. He just needed to contact the right people, at the right time, for the right reasons. Everything would fall into place, tickety-boo, as it were, and the world would be saved. Aziraphale wanted to save the world. He wanted to preserve it like a finely read book, the story of his life with Crowley popping in and out just when he was needed. Oh, if only he wasn’t _always_ needed. That was the only thing keeping Aziraphale from saying _yes._ He’d said no. Once more, and again. No.

He would not go with Crowley.

He would not run away with Crowley.

He would not choose Crowley.

And Crowley left.

But he didn’t leave, he couldn’t have. It was on the television, the radio. It was everywhere—the song. Playing out in a tune Aziraphale knew better than anyone. He had hummed it incessantly in the streets of Rome. He hummed it on his loneliest nights. He kept it pressed tight against his heart for when he needed it. A love song. Crowley’s love song. Now played strong with his bass guitar and the rest—demon magic, Aziraphale assumed. There was no way this song wasn’t a property of magic, the way it sounded. So beautiful but hard. But rough. Just like Crowley, with all the right words and the sway of his hips. It was positively everything—the return of Anthony J. Crowley.

But it wasn’t Anthony J. Crowley. It was Crowley and his audience of one. His first audience. A private showing. All for one who stood dumbfounded at the sound of the radio. Crowley hadn’t left. He’d gone back to his flat to grab the song he’d recorded decades ago with no strength to put it out and sent it to everyone. To anyone. Anyone who would hear him, who would listen and believe, he sent it. They played it, and the world stood silent as they heard him. They didn’t matter. Not to Crowley. The world could burn, and Crowley would sit in his throne with his plant mister and be perfectly content to water his flowers when the sun rose. It wasn’t the earth that mattered. Not the people. Maybe once, it had been, but now.

_From Hell, I_ _’ll write the whole night through. If to only spell my love for you._

Aziraphale understood, all at once. Crowley’s love song. _His_ song. _Their_ song. A song for Aziraphale, sung in all the melodies that Aziraphale knew and loved. With the sweetest words, the sweetest voice, and all for him. Crowley had done it all for him. He’d played the fiddle in Ireland for him, when their eyes met. He’d played the piano in Germany when Aziraphale had left, but _for_ him. In hopes he would return or that his travels would be safe. He’d played the violin for him, at the funeral of a man he loved without recourse. He’d only played. And now.

_I hope these words will reach you. How long might it take to do, to tell an angel, I love you._

Aziraphale would have cried. Should have cried, but what of the timing? How poor—they were terribly good at this thing, rather. Always tiptoeing around each other like glass and soft things when _this_ is what they needed. But the timing, always wrong. There was never a moment for an angel and a demon to meet in the gray and hold their hands in a way they might otherwise, if they were people. Not now. Not with the world about to end. Not when Crowley was too drunk to speak properly and mumbled on about how he’d lost his best friend. Aziraphale still didn’t know what to say—if there was anything to say. How could he tell a demon he loved him? Wouldn’t it—wouldn’t he fall? Wouldn’t he be damned for it?

Or would Crowley sing a song for him? Would Crowley write more songs for him in the plainness he’d written that one? Would he play them in the late hours of the evening? Would he sing? For Aziraphale?

The only way to find out was to win, and if they did, they would talk about it. Aziraphale was determined. Because, when they were sitting on that bench and Crowley offered him a place for the night, Aziraphale realized something all at once. Crowley had been looking at him with those eyes for thousands of years, the same. In the tavern, the night in Rome, and even in that town square by the fountain when Aziraphale had find what he wanted with someone else. Even for it all, Crowley’s look had never changed. And he hadn’t left, not really. He’d never really left, in six-thousand years. He’d always been there when Aziraphale least expected but most needed. If damnation was the curse for that, Aziraphale quite frankly didn’t care.

He would take an eternity in Hell’s deepest pits for even one more chance to hear Crowley sing, so he accepted the offer. They road back to Soho in silence, back to Crowley’s flat. There would be time eternity now, for them and only them. They would fight off Heaven, they would fight off Hell, for the damnation they found in each other. Maybe they needed a better plan than looking the part of each other, but when Crowley finally put his hands on Aziraphale, Aziraphale decided that any plan would have been enough for more of this.

Crowley sounded as beautiful in bed as he did in the music, on top of Aziraphale. A breathless sort of sound that came from his throat, where it mattered, as he worked his hips. Aziraphale could do nothing but writhe underneath him and listen, listen to the _sounds_ that they made and the symphony it was. And when they finished, Crowley sat at the edge of the bed. One day, Crowley would learn about the albums in Aziraphale’s shop. He would learn about the books he’d been hiding, all written on one particular musician throughout time. On Crowley. One day, Crowley would know every secret Aziraphale had ever kept from him. The songs he knew, the ones the listened to, how they kept him company on stormy nights. One day, Crowley would have it all.

For now, he played the lute at the end of the bed, at hours so late that no one should have been at the flat with him. But Aziraphale was, and he listened like it was the last private showing he’d ever hear.

**Author's Note:**

> [Top Crowley Dicsord](https://discord.gg/6UgMsjH)   
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